


And They Called it Puppy Love...

by ElwritesFanworks



Series: Barisi Thru Time (Fics Spanning 1960s-1980s) [1]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: 1950s, 1960s, Alternate Universe, Angst, Awkward Flirting, Awkward Romance, Baseball, Break Up, Catholic Guilt, Catholic School, Catholicism, Dorks in Love, Family Feels, Family Fluff, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Foreshadowing, High School, Historical References, Immigration & Emigration, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, JFK gets shot and things go to shit basically, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Marine Corps, No Underage Sex, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Rafael has a bit of an accent, Sonny has a bit of an accent kink, Teen Crush, Teen Romance, Teenage Dorks, This gets sad, Underage Kissing, Vietnam War, copious end notes, downgraded the rating on account no sex happens until the sequel, find out how 'to shit' they've gone in the sequel, ominous foreshadowing at that, overly wet kissing, teen boys bonding over baseball, teenagers being shitty at relationships and communication, way too much research is going into this ridiculous fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-04 04:07:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13356159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElwritesFanworks/pseuds/ElwritesFanworks
Summary: The year is 1960. Sonny Carisi is seventeen, and possibly falling in love.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First: listen to this song, if you've never heard it. It captures the whole tone of this fic. The song starts about 1 minute in:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR89JVJqBYg
> 
> More Notes/Historical Stuff at the End.  
> Anyway. Yeah. Have some dorky boys having * feels *.
> 
> (I try not to presume any historical knowledge in my readers/explain things in notes for those who don't study history professionally as I do, so if I ever introduce anything I think might trip anyone up, I'll try to leave a note, so read the notes, please, for context. (Also because I put effort into them.) Thanks!)

* * *

Sonny is dizzy, palms damp and heart fluttering as he fixes his hair once more in his bedroom mirror, itchy and anxious in his Sunday shirt. He aims for James Dean and gets close enough, and if he squints his eyes to blur the pimple on his forehead, he looks almost handsome.

“Sonny, you left yet?”

He jumps about a foot in the air and sends his comb flying, whirling around at the sound of his mother hollering up at him from downstairs.

“N-not yet, Ma!” he shouts down.

“You’re gonna be late!”

“I’m comin’!” he bellows, voice cracking at the tail-end of the phrase and vaulting up several octaves. He distantly hears one of his sisters laughing in response.

“Just a bit of this,” he mumbles, dabbing on some of his dad’s cologne, swiped from the bathroom. He hesitates, then adds some more, in case the first bit sweats off. He stuffs his gangly arms into his cardigan, and it’s not a leather jacket but he likes to think he looks good. He tries to carry himself with confidence as he makes his way down the stairs, a picture of nonchalance with a racing pulse.

“Eugh, who spilled perfume?” Teresa coughs, grinning as he walked by.

“It’s cologne, and shut it,” Sonny snaps, harsher than he means to, punching his arms into the sleeves of his coat. Gina snorts, sidling over and jabbing him in the ribs.

“You’re walkin’ like you have hemorrhoids,” she says, snickering.

“I don’t have hemorrhoids! I’m tryin’ to make an impression.”

“Oh, you’re doin’ that, alright,” Teresa teases.

“Leave your brother alone,” comes the voice of their mother, emerging from the kitchen to adjust his tie and straighten his collar. “I think it’s sweet he’s makin’ an effort for his little friend.”

“Little friend – Ma, we’re in high school, not nursery school!”

“I bet it’s a double date,” Gina grins. “I bet you’re going to take _girls_ out.”

“I’m goin’ to eat dinner and talk about baseball!” Sonny protests.

“Sonny’s showin’ them that America’s got some nice people in it. It’s diplomatic. You could learn from your brother’s kindness,” Mrs. Carisi says sternly, giving Sonny a break from the (good-natured) ridicule. Heaven knows, she figures, if he's going out smelling like that much cologne, he’ll be getting teased enough, if Cuban families are anything like American ones.

“That’s his car,” Sonny exclaims, pulling away and galloping towards the door. “Gotta go!”

“Do up your jacket – you’ll catch a cold. And make sure you thank his family for havin’ you over!”

His mother’s words fall on deaf ears. The sight of Rafael, hand on the wheel of his third-hand car, makes his stomach knot up. He looks good – he always does. He’s dressed humbly in a coat that looks like it last saw use in the forties, but he carries it off with a air of style – he may not have money, but he has a sense of how to seem grown-up, smooth, while Sonny’s all elbows and knees and voice cracks.

“Get in,” he says, and the warm feeling wakes up, prickling at Sonny’s skin, shivery and tingly all at once. It’s the way he used to feel watching _I Love Lucy_ with a pillow strategically laid over his lap, and what sounded good on Desi Arnaz’s tongue can damn near knock his socks off when it’s on Rafael’s.

“You’re dressed for Mass,” he adds as Sonny settles in beside him, shutting the door with a click. “This is nothing so formal.”

Sonny nods.

“I dress like this everyday,” he says, suave, like Marlon Brando, and Rafael furrows his brow at him.

“No, you don’t,” he replies, confused, and pulls out of the driveway.

Aw jeez, Sonny’s got it bad. He could almost convince himself he had altruism in his heart when he was just protecting the new kid from bullies (and subsequently being put in his place – Rafael can, it turned out, take care of himself.) When he was just bumming him smokes from his dad’s carton at home, or offering him a stick of gum, it was all still in the realm of normal, healthy behavior. Now, his head is spinning, and all because he’d been a fool and shown Rafael some of his baseball cards, only to have Rafael casually tell him he had his own memorabilia collection – and would he like to see it? Somehow, that turned into a dinner invitation, and Sonny sitting in the passenger seat, sweating like a whore in church.

Rafael’s house is small and plain, but Sonny feels honored as he’s led up the path to the door. He’s struck, absurdly, with the thought that this must be what it was like when his aunt and uncle visited the Vatican a few years earlier. The air feels charged. Sacred. He’s afraid to breathe too much and ruin it all. Awestruck, he watches as Rafael unlocks the door and pokes his head in, looking around. He says something in Spanish, waits a beat, then beckons.

“Be quiet,” he whispers. “My abuela’s sleeping.”

Sonny’s not sure what that means, but he does as he’s told, taking his coat and hat off and unwinding his scarf. They leave their boots by the door, and their coats on the rack, and Rafael leads him to a small room on his left. He shuts the door once they’re inside so they can speak at normal volume without risking waking the house’s other occupant and gestures awkwardly with his hand.

“My room,” he mutters, strangely shy. Sonny takes it all in, detail by detail. In contrast to his own room, this place is neat as a pin. There’s books everywhere – most of them with Spanish names Sonny can’t recognize, though he can identify the Bible on the nightstand and the library book on the desk in the corner: Perry Mason. There’s a cross over Rafael’s bed – same as in Sonny’s room. The floor is clean – no balled-up socks or dirty underpants to be seen. The bed itself is made. Rafael gets on his hands and knees and reaches under it to pull out a shoe box, which he sets on the mattress and opens reverently.

Sonny sits on the other side of the box and looks in.

It’s all in there, painstakingly arranged. Scorecards and newspaper clippings, cards – all of it. Some of the players Sonny knows – others he guesses – and Rafael confirms – had played for Negro leagues, back before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. Others aren’t well known in America, but known to Rafael. All are Cuban, and most were active sportsmen before either boy was born. The detailed notes and thorough player statistics are fascinating, and Sonny is glad to see them, but he finds himself distracted, in the moment, by the way Rafael pronounces certain words, the way his hands move, precise and elegant, over his collection, the pride in his voice when he speaks of this or that player, and the wistful gleam in his eye when he remembers the great men of years past, and his country, as he knew it before. The same fretful part of Sonny that makes him keep buying physique magazines without attempting to put on even a pound of muscle is fixated by the way Rafael’s throat moves when he swallows, the way he smells, the gleam of saliva on his lower lip.

“You’re staring,” the shorter boy whispers, and Sonny blinks, because he’s not only been staring – he’s been leaning over, across the shoe box. He’s close enough now that when Rafael exhales, he can _feel_ it. He swallows, gripped by a sudden attack of nerves, and the moment shatters, Rafael scooting back on the bed and getting to his feet.

“Come on,” he says. “We can have dinner now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First note: Negro Leagues  
> For those of you who aren't baseball people, there used to be white baseball leagues (that allowed light-skinned Hispanic, Native American, Hawaiian, etc. players) and negro leagues which allowed Black and Dark-Skinned Hispanics. In Cuba, the teams weren't segregated, but often when playing in the U.S. players would be, so Cuban athletes could wind up in either league depending on their skin color. Now you know.
> 
> Second note: We're presuming a Catholic Barba because demographically that makes sense, and as motivation for escaping Communist revolution. Not that there aren't other motivations, or that all Catholics fled the country. But I can write Catholic teen angst forever because I lived that shit, so might as well go all-in.
> 
> Third note: Perry Mason - I like to think that to brush up on his English/for fun, young!Barba would enjoy Perry Mason novels, since they're all about lawyer stuff and solving cases.
> 
> Last note: Sonny is seventeen, grew up with American (Catholic) fifties tastes re: music, fashion, hobbies, sports, so if he seems more like a fifties kid than a stereotypical sixties kid, that's why. The sixties as we often picture them ARE NOT the same as 1960 was for your average Catholic kid (I come from a family of them and have tons of family stories of relatives coming of age in this era. I'm heavily inspired by that to write this.)
> 
> Rafael's family would've left early, given the Cuban Revolution only happens in '59. So they were out fast. I won't get into details as to the how's or why-they-live-in-the-same-neighborhood-as-Sonny's because this is, ultimately, going to be a bunch of preamble to self-indulgent fluff and eventual of-age smut, so this is very much 'History Lite.' That said, I'm trying to be realistic in timelines, I'm researching as I go, etc. I spent a few hours reading about how Castro ended major league Cuban baseball in 1961 today and I don't even need that for this fic, but whatever. Even when a historian says he's doing 'History Lite' it still winds up being pretty involved.


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

Dinner, it turns out, is what Sonny would call a revelatory experience. Paella reminds him, texture-wise, a little of the risotto his mom used to make, back when she didn’t have to work and the freezer wasn’t full of TV dinners. The flavor is like nothing he’s ever had, though, bright and bold in ways that he’s never imagined, and he praises it effusively as he tries not to eat too much, his father’s voice in his ear. _Slow down, kiddo, it’s not going to run away from the plate._ Sonny can’t help it – a late bloomer from a family of late bloomers, the last two years have been a haze of growing pains and stained sheets and being hungry – _starving_ – all the time.

Rafael watches him with an amused glint in his eyes, rising from his seat to move the pot off the burner. Reheated food, in his opinion, is not worth drooling over, but Sonny is a well of enthusiasm at the best of times.

They are joined by Rafael’s grandmother, who Sonny quickly learns speaks no English, so Rafael has to act as interpreter. Still, she strikes Sonny as the nice kind of old lady, so he takes to her immediately. He’d been a bit worried she’d turn out to be like one of the older nuns at school, and feared for his knuckles, but all she does is tell him – through Rafael – that he’s very tall and looks like he could be good at sports. Sonny’s not much of a sportsman – he plays a lot, but his sudden growth spurt last summer has made him clumsy and prone to tripping over his own feet – and being noticed for his athleticism is a big boost to his ego.

After dinner, Rafael’s grandmother leaves listen to a radio show, leaving both boys alone. Sonny helps Rafael clear the table and bring the dishes to the sink.

“You wash, I’ll dry?” he suggests, and Rafael nods, handing him a dishrag. He doesn’t mean to start humming as he works – it’s a habit. Rafael pauses and looks over at him.

“You have a nice voice,” he remarks, surprised. Sonny grins.

“Thanks,” he beams. “Yeah, I’m in a group.”

“A group?”

“Yeah. A kind of a doo-wop thing.”

His voice shakes a bit with pride as he says it. He hopes Rafael likes doo-wop. It strikes him, in the ensuing silence, that Rafael might not like doo-wop. Maybe he thinks it’s not as good as, say, jazz. _Maybe_ he thinks being a guy who sings falsetto and harmonizes with a bunch of other guys is sissy.

“I would like to hear you sometime. Do you ever perform?” Rafael asks.

“Uh, not anywhere important or nothin’,” Sonny clarifies. “Mostly we practice in Louie Bianchini’s dad’s garage. You can come listen if you want.”

Rafael shakes his head.

“I don’t think Louie Bianchini likes me very much. Nor does his father.”

“Aw, that’s just ‘cause he hasn’t got to know you! You’re the new kid. People gotta warm up to you.”

Rafael scowls down at the sink.

“Maybe I don’t want them to warm up to me. Your friends are all…” he searches for the word.

“Dopes?” Sonny supplies. Rafael nods.

“Yeah, well… it’s their loss then. I think you’re wonderful,” he stammers out, and then wishes he could shrivel up and die. Rafael eyes him critically.

“You’re a little strange,” he says at last, and turns back to the dishes while Sonny struggles like a beached fish trying to get back to water.

“Where’s your mom?” he asks, because it’s the first coherent thing that comes into his head.

“At work. She made dinner before she left.”

Ah, that Sonny understands. He remembers his mother before money got tight, when he’d get home from school and be greeted at the door with a hug and a kiss. Still, a brood as big as the Carisi’s costs a pretty penny, so the domestic ideal was traded in for a job waitressing at the local diner. It hasn’t all been bad – Sonny gets free milkshakes, now – but he misses the days of having a parent at home. It doesn’t seem right, his Ma having to work.

“And your dad?”

Rafael tenses, and scrubs the pot harder, clenching his jaw. Sonny senses he’s losing ground, and desperately, he tries the only play he can think of to save the conversation.

“D’you… d’you wanna come over to my house sometime?”

Rafael looks taken aback at the sudden invitation, so Sonny backtracks.

“I mean – I’ve seen yours, you should see mine, right? Houses! Houses, my house. Your house. Uh… I have… lots of food and… sisters? But they’re not so great to have around… uh… I’ve got a TV!”

Rafael’s eyes widen at that.

“Do you watch Perry Mason?” he asks, and Sonny nods.

“Yeah, of course - well, my parents do. Do you wanna –”

“Yes,” Rafael nods emphatically, reaching around Sonny to dry his hands on the other dishrag hanging by the sink. Sonny has never been more aware of another man’s arm in his life.

“You really like all that crime stuff, huh? You wanna be a mystery writer or somethin’?”

“No. I want to be a lawyer,” Rafael says, matter-of-factly. “I am going to Harvard and I am going to become a lawyer.”

Sonny whistles. He can’t help himself. It seems an impossibly lofty goal for a Cuban-American Catholic boy with no money and no father around. Then again, some part of himself believes inherently that Rafael could do it – that Rafael could, probably, do anything at all – because while he’s a bit of a know-it-all and a square, he’s also brilliantly clever and strong as an ox. He says as much, and Rafael nods in agreement.

“I never said it would be easy, but I think that, in my lifetime, I will see it done. ‘Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.’ William Shakespeare wrote that.”

“O-oh,” Sonny breathes. Rafael has him crowded against the sink now, and his brain is rapidly fogging up. Something in him sticks on the words ‘embrace thee,’ and they repeat in his head like a skipping record.

“I wish I’d invited you over at Christmas,” he babbles, “so you could’ve eaten crostoli.”

Rafael laughs incredulously against his mouth, leaning up on his toes.

“You’re strange, Dominick Carisi,” he whispers.

“S-Sonny.”

“Mm.”

There’s counter-top digging into his ribs. Rafael tastes like paella and warmth. Sonny’s never been kissed like this – like a proper, grown-up kiss that makes his toes curl. Dimly, he wonders if this can count as his first kiss, instead of the hasty press of closed lips to the edge of his mouth when he walked Susie Ricci home after last year’s Valentine’s Dance.

As quick as it starts, it’s over, and Rafael is turning away to grab a can of coffee out from one of the kitchen cabinets.

“I’ll make a pot, if you’re interested.”

Sonny’s only been allowed to drink coffee since he started working mornings at the bakery and he pleaded his case with his parents. Rafael is the most amazing person he’s ever met in his life.

“Okay,” he says, watching as the other boy measures out the coffee grounds. He stands there, dumbly, by the sink, the whole universe reduced to his heartbeat and the tingling feeling of his slightly swollen lips.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a Barba!centric chapter for once.
> 
> Please read the end notes as a) I spent time on them b) they're interesting (IMO) and c) you get a link to a youtube video of a pretty song for your trouble :D
> 
> If you see any errors/typos, I'll probably catch/edit them later. I reread my work a lot to find and correct them, as I don't have a beta. I try my best, but miss the odd thing.
> 
> Oh, I also arbitrarily named Sonny's mom Donna as I couldn't find a name for her, the wiki lists her as unnamed, and Donna and Dom have a nice ring to them. (For some reason, the wiki also lists Sonny's dad as unnamed even though he's literally a junior, so his dad must, by extension, be called Dominick. Anyway, that's just a random aside. I'll shut up until my (copious) end notes.)

* * *

Rafael is grateful for his poker face. He looks as serene as the still surface of a lake, for all his insides are squirming and he fears he’s standing on the precipice of some unforeseen calamity. He pressed his shirt and trousers and polished his shoes but he still feels like he looks too much like what he is: poor and pretentious all at once. He thanks God that Sonny is so easy to impress.

Pacing his bedroom, he wishes he’d had the presence of mind to refuse the car ride that came with the dinner invitation to the Carisi home. If he had borrowed his landlord’s car, as per their agreement (Rafael does odd jobs around the place in exchange for use of the vehicle since neither his mother nor his grandmother can drive,) he would have had time to prepare himself, mentally, to be welcomed by Sonny’s family. As it is, he will have a drive in which to become flustered and distracted watching Sonny’s hands grip the wheel.

He shudders and curses his own weak heart for being so sentimental when things are in danger of going so badly wrong. At nineteen years of age, Rafael Barba is a realist. He drinks his coffee black, smokes cigarettes, and shaves once a day. He doesn’t need some teenage delusion of love – let alone such an immoral and doomed infatuation as this – ruining his plans. He is well aware of the odds stacked against him, but he knows himself better, and he knows that if he pushes himself, he can succeed, surpassing peers and parents, rising all the way up to that American Dream that everyone wants, and no one has the grit, or the chance to try and reach for. (He is sure he will have that grit. He will make his own luck.) Sonny isn’t part of that plan, with his warm, honest smile and his soft lips that tasted like home. Rafael curses again.

Peering out the window, he sees the Carisi’s station wagon as it pulls up the drive. Rafael is out in the yard before Sonny can honk the horn – no sense disturbing his abuela with the noise. He whispers a goodbye as he leaves. The old woman is sleeping – he worries she sleeps too much. Since they’ve come here, she seems smaller, as though she left some of herself behind. He says nothing to his mother, as his mother is out – but then, she always is.

There is snow on his head and shoulders, snowflakes in his hair as he settles into the passenger seat uneasily. One of Sonny’s radiant smiles soothes his nerves somewhat, but he still feels like someone has his guts in a vice, especially when he notices the shadow of a bruise on Sonny’s cheek.

“You’ve been hit!” he exclaims, old horror prickling at the back of his neck, coiling like springs in his arms and legs.

“Oh, yeah. One of the Crawford boys.”

Sonny says it cheerfully enough.

“I do not think I know the Crawford boys.”

“You wouldn’t. They don’t go to our school.

“Why did they hit you?”

“Petey Fitzgerald and Louie and I got into a fight with them,” he beams.

“A fight over what?”

“The usual,” he says, like that explains it. Then, “the Crawfords are Protestants, you know.”

“So…?”

“We’re Catholics,” Sonny shrugs, “What else are we supposed to do with ‘em? They fight us, we fight back.”

“Who wins?”

“Nobody wins, it’s just… I dunno. It’s just somethin’ to do.”

“It strikes me as idiotic to fight someone out of boredom. Especially if you don’t win.”

“It can be fun, just punchin’ for the sake of punchin’.”

“No,” Rafael says firmly, an edge to his voice. “No, it cannot.”

Sonny looks a little hurt that he’s been misunderstood, but Rafael finds he doesn’t care. He will make no concessions on this.

“Ma’s made meatballs for tonight,” Sonny offers, hesitant. “D’you like meatballs?”

“Who doesn’t like meatballs?” Rafael asks in disbelief, and Sonny’s grin at being (somewhat) forgiven is as vivid and blinding as staring into the sun.

“I told her you’d like ‘em. Bella’s made cookies, too – for dessert. It’s a school thing. I had one this morning – they’re good if you don’t eat the edges. Those are burnt. Just bite around the outside and then spit all that out and it tastes fine.”

“Why wouldn’t you just break the cookie in half and eat the middle that way?”

Sonny blushes a bit, looking back at the wheel. His way, in retrospect, is ridiculous, and both boys know it.

“Yeah, you could do that.”

Sure enough, when they push through the front door, tripping over a small mountain of various shoes and boots, Rafael is hit with the smell of delicious spiced meat, garlic, and tomatoes. The smell is followed by a cacophony of women’s voices all speaking at once.

“He’s here, Ma!”

“Ma, they’re here!”

“Ma!”

Mrs. Carisi comes bustling in with a grin on her face and an apron on, and enfolds Rafael in a full-body hug he isn’t expecting or prepared for, and in which he remains frozen, stiff as a board.

“Come in, come in – just throw your coats anywhere. D’you want anythin’ to drink? You like Kool-Aid? Coca Cola?”

“… do you have coffee?”

“Ooh, our guest here’s a sophisticate,” comes a male voice, deep and resonant. Rafael tries not to tense at the sound, meeting the man’s eyes in a challenge, only to find them disconcertingly friendly and unassuming. “Go on, Donna, go get the boy a cup of joe – and some Kool-Aid for Sonny.”

“I’ll have coffee too!” Sonny protests, but his father shakes his head.

“And have you bouncin’ all over the house all night? You’ve had your one cup with breakfast, boy.”

Sonny sulks as he makes his way to the bathroom, leaving Rafael stranded with Mr. Carisi, who he eyes with residual mistrust.

“So you’re the kid Sonny won’t stop goin’ on about, huh?” Mr. Carisi grins. Sonny has his smile, Rafael realizes. “Ever since you joined his class last October he’s been tellin’ us about how smart you are. Relax, kid, we’re not gonna string you up by your thumbs.”

He extends a hand.

“Dominick Carisi Sr.,” he says. Rafael returns the handshake gingerly.

“Rafael Barba.”

Mr. Carisi looks him up and down, his face unreadable.

“He said you’re here to watch TV?”

“P-Perry Mason,” Rafael stumbles, trying to imagine carrying himself with the same presence and aptitude as his fictional hero in this moment of unforeseen difficulty.

“Oh? Hey, Donna, this kid’s got good taste!” Mr. Carisi bellows towards the kitchen.

“What’s that, dear?”

“I said – ah, never mind. Like talkin’ to a wall when she’s cookin’ dinner. Hey, do me a favor kid and never get hitched.”

“What?” Rafael blurts out, increasingly confused by the conversation. Mr. Carisi claps him on the shoulder with enough force to send him through a window, making him yelp.

“I’m just jokin’. I love that little woman with all my heart. Come on in, kid. Quit standin’ in the hall.”

Rafael follows Mr. Carisi with an increasing sense of hesitant and fragile wonder. He watches as the man walks up behind his wife, toiling over a pot of sauce on the stove, and spins her around in his arms, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

“What are you doin’, Dom? You’ll make me burn my sauce!” she laughs as he gives her a fond squeeze. Rafael feels something tighten in his chest. Then the man starts _singing._

He has a decent voice – nothing to write home about – but he hams it up, batting his eyes and crooning.

“You're breakin’ my heart 'cause you're leavin’, you've fallen for somebody new…”

“It’s a pot of sauce, Dominick,” she snorts.

“It isn't too easy believin’, you'd leave after all we've been through~!”

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake,” she tuts, feigning impatience as she turns back to the stove and takes the pot off the burner. He slips his arms around her waist and hums the song, low and gentle in her ear, and Rafael feels, suddenly, that he might cry. He crushes the impulse down, of course, but not before it stings.

Sonny returns, drying his hands on his shirt, only to be told to call the girls for dinner. He hollers down the hall, and, one by one, the Carisi daughters appear. They’re all pretty in the winsome, wide-eyed way young women often are, though it’s clear that Bella’s trying her hardest to look older than she is. She eyes Rafael with equal parts fascination and suspicion, taking a seat next to him at the dinner table. Sonny sits on his other side, and Rafael follows his lead, waiting for the family patriarch to lead them in saying grace. Once it’s been said, the food makes the rounds, and Rafael finds himself with an overfull plate of delicious, home-cooked meatballs, marinara, and spaghetti.

Italian-American cooking is something he thinks he can get used to. Sonny’s family, too, is something he thinks he can get used to. It is a heady, dizzying mess of gesticulation and references that mean nothing to him – family memories that, when alluded to, have everyone but him howling with laughter. He is being bombarded by twelve conversations at once, and it’s all he can do to nod and shake his head when asked questions.

“Sonny says you wanna be a lawyer. That true?” Mr. Carisi asks and Rafael fights the heat that burns the back of his neck. He’s not ashamed of his aspirations, but he’s also not a fool. The wrong answer to a question like this is the sort that some men belt you for. Some men don’t take kindly to dreamers – Rafael knows this, has felt it, deeply.

“I hope to,” he says softly.

“Hope’s a bit of an understatement. My boy says you’re aimin' for Harvard.”

Rafael’s cheeks burn and he lowers his head. Mr. Carisi seems to sense something’s amiss, because he keeps speaking, gentleness in his voice.

“You’d make a lot of people happy, doin’ somethin’ like that. Catholic boy with an education is always a thing to be proud of.”

Rafael is taken aback by the vote of confidence.

“You – you don’t think I am…” he gropes for the phrase, “punching above my weight?”

“Listen to me, now, this is important,” Mr. Carisi says, and reaches into his pocket. He pulls out a dollar bill and sets it on the table.

“I bet you this dollar, right here, and four more like it that we’re gonna see a Catholic in the White House, runnin' the whole show, you wait and see if you don’t believe me!”

“Dud’s crazuh fur Kennuduh,” Sonny says through a mouthful of pasta.

“Chew your food, what, were you raised in a barn?” Mrs. Carisi scolds. “But he’s right, of course. You can guess how this household will be votin’, anyhow.”

“Kennedy went to Harvard, and look at him now,” Mr. Carisi added. “Who knows, maybe he’ll be the start of somethin’. It’d be one for the history books if we elected a Cuban president.”

Rafael is unsure how to respond to such encouragement.

“I will take that under advisement,” he says, and smiles a small smile down at his meatballs.

* * *

The episode of Perry Mason is the first he’s seen and not had described by a friend with a television set. It’s glorious – riveting. Mason himself embodies everything he wants to in a court room, and Paul Drake is rivetingly handsome. He finds himself hanging on every word, frowning at this or that, formulating his own arguments as he always does when he reads the books. His unshakeable focus seems to amuse the Carisi clan at first, by the end of the hour, they look at Rafael with a sort of newfound respect. They spend some time discussing the episode afterwards, and are impressed by Rafael’s grasp of legal jargon and theory.

“You sure know your stuff,” Mr. Carisi enthuses. “See, Sonny – that’s what havin' an aspiration does for a man. What’d you take away from the show, or were you too busy daydreamin’ about baseball?”

Sonny rolls his eyes at the teasing and shrugs.

“That stuff about Korea – that was alright. Cousin Anthony’d probably be interested in it.”

“Yes, he would.”

“They did some awful things in those prisoner-of-war camps,” Gina interjects, “I read about it, you know. Just awful things!”

“Yes, they did. And you best thank God that your cousin got home safe and sound,” Mrs. Carisi adds. “You best pray for him, too. He’s an American hero now, our Anthony.”

“Okay, well, time for bed everybody,” Mr. Carisi interrupts, rising from his chair with a clicking of joints and a groan. “Come on, girls, it’s late. You too, Sonny. You’ve got work in the mornin’. I’ll run your pal over here home.”

“Oh, Dom, you can’t go out in that!” Mrs. Carisi exclaims when she looks out the window. “Just look at the snow! Oh, dear… you know I hate you drivin’ on those roads when the weather gets bad…”

“Rafael can stay here tonight, right Ma?” Sonny pipes up eagerly, and Rafael tries to suppress the blush that blooms on his traitorous cheeks.

“I should really get home to my mother and –”

Mr. Carisi glances outside, clicks his tongue and shakes his head.

“Nah, kiddo, she’s right – it’s a blizzard out there. Look, how’s about you give your mom a ring? You can borrow some of Sonny’s things – they’ll be a bit big, but they’ll fit you. I’m sure your folks’ll understand.”

Rafael is torn between wanting desperately to stay and berating himself for the way his heart races at the thought.

“I’ll… I… I will stay, then, if it’s no trouble,” he concedes.

“What’s ours is yours, kid. Go make your call – Bella, show him where the phone is.”

As he listens to the rings, waiting for his mother or grandmother to pick up, Rafael almost hopes someone will order him home and save him from this too-friendly family before his senses are utterly overwhelmed by this unsolicited kindness. Of course, no one does – he is granted permission and told to mind his manners and not to run his mouth. Then his mother hangs up, and he’s left holding the phone to his ear, unsure of what to do, now he’s meant to spend the night. He knows what he wants to do, and that thought is frightening enough to nearly make him cross himself.

“Come on up, if you’re ready,” Sonny says from the doorway. “I’ll show you my room.”

His breath hitches a little as he says it and Rafael relaxes somewhat because Sonny sounds at least as affected as he is. Rafael sets the phone back in its cradle, following Sonny up the stairs and down the hall. He holds his breath in anticipation, and doesn’t exhale until Sonny shoulders open his bedroom door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of notes this time around. I'll try to be concise.
> 
> 1\. We are running with canon-compliant bad dad for Barba. Hence his initial mistrust and general confused emotions re: Mr. Carisi and his relationship to his family.
> 
> 2\. Sectarian violence, albeit of a 'boys scrapping in the street' variety is something I don't see as out of the realm of possibility for a young and impulsive Sonny who could probably get roped into enjoying a fistfight provided it was just a bit of a 'boys being boys' brawl and not actually one in which people were being seriously hurt/mistreated. Obviously in some areas, Protestant on Catholic / Catholic on Protestant violence can be much more serious, but in this case it falls more under the umbrella of 'dumb shit teens do for kicks.' I see young Sonny as being a bit naive and impressionable, and with his eager-to-please attitude, he could probably get talked into some minor things. According to my dad who grew up around this time in the Northern U.S., fistfights were often just a way for kids to get stuff out of their system/blow off steam because there wasn't anything better to do. I can see Sonny being a bit like that, while still being ultimately a good kid with a heart of gold.
> 
> 3\. The song Mr. Carisi is singing is Vic Damone's 1949 song 'You're Breaking My Heart' based on the Italian 'Mattinata.' Listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI2r_vx_5Rc
> 
> 4\. My (Catholic) family was obsessed with JFK. 'nuff said. He was a big deal to a lot of Catholics at the time. Since this story is taking place in late January of 1960, he would've just recently announced he'd be running for president.
> 
> 5\. The Perry Mason episode they watch aired on prime time, January 23, 1960, and was 'The Case of the Wayward Wife.' The plot revolves, in part, around a Korean War veteran and prisoner-of-war camps. The episode is real and you can look it up and watch it if you'd like. I watched it once upon a time, but just read the summary for a refresher this go 'round as I didn't have time to watch an hour long episode while writing this. Also I made up Cousin Anthony because I the Carisi family being so big might've had a relative fight in Korea. My family certainly did, and like I said, a lot of this is inspired by the family stories of '1950s Catholic Adventures' that my family always tells at reunions and shit. So yeah.
> 
> 6\. If Barba seems unsure of what he wants, given that he kissed Sonny, it's because this is still new to him. Teens in general were less sexually 'literate' in this period, and people, while certainly getting together, did so without the normalizing 'sex positive' modern media influences that are out there for young people today. ESPECIALLY for Catholic kids. Even in my own experience, Catholic school sex-ed was basically useless, and most kids sort of stumble their way around figuring things out on the fly. Given that, in 1960, finding any kind of gay resource for young people re: sexuality and health would be pretty much impossible, let alone for two Catholic boys to find such a thing, they're both discovering themselves a little later than they might in 2018, and are trying to discern what they want in the midst of feels and hormones and all that lovely shit. So yes Barba's mature, yes he's 19, yes he's seen and been through a lot, but he's also still experiencing the brain-melting fuzz of first love, which basically reduces even the best people to simpering teenagers sometimes. Or at least that's what I hope I'm conveying. I'm trying to, anyway.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have another Barba!centric chapter, a follow-up to the last one. 
> 
> Also, have boys kissing, feels, and praying. As this is pre-Vatican II, both boys would know their prayers in Latin and it'd be a way for them to share in something in a language that neither of them have as a first language.
> 
> Not too much more notes other than that. Oh, and that Bobby Darin had more than one hit in 1959 and I can see one of the Carisi girls falling for him, and then forcing Sonny to listen to Dream Lover over and over again.

* * *

Sonny’s bedroom is a mess. Every wall has something tacked to it – postcards and posters and cartoons cut out of the newspaper. Rafael looks it all over, piles of dirty laundry, an old ant farm that is, distressingly, missing its ants, a family photograph of a younger, goofier Sonny with no front teeth, grinning wide, a band-aid on his knee, hand in a baseball glove.

“Sorry it’s kind of… I shoulda cleaned, I guess,” Sonny blushes, looking around in slight distress. Rafael shrugs.

“I don’t care. It’s your house.”

Honestly, he’d be happy to spend the night with Sonny if the boy lived in a dumpster, and that thought unnerves him greatly.

Sonny shows him where the upstairs bathroom is.

“You’ll hafta do like I did at cub scouts when we’d go campin’ and I’d forget my brush,” he says, and mimes squirting toothpaste onto his finger. “Towels are in the closet ‘cross the hall if you wanna have a shower in the mornin’.”

“Thank you.”

“Uh, lemme find you some pajamas,” Sonny mumbles, and leaves him there, to crudely scrub his teeth. When he returns to the bedroom, Sonny has laid out blue flannel pajamas for him.

“That oughta fit you, more or less,” he says. Then, “I can change in the bathroom.”

“If you like.”

“Would you… uh… would you rather I stayed?”

The hopeful note in Sonny’s voice is ridiculous. The whole situation is ridiculous.

“Do what you want,” Rafael shrugs, and starts on the buttons of his shirt. “Stay or go. It’s your choice.”

Sonny, his face a ripe tomato, retrieves his own pajamas. They change in silence, sneaking furtive glances at each other. It’s both the most foolish and erotic moment of Rafael’s life up to that point. He doesn’t see much, but he sees enough to know that Sonny is fit and lean, that his body would be firm but not overly muscled to touch. It’s a giddy sort of thought to have, and Rafael can’t help but laugh.

“What’s funny?” Sonny asks doing up the last button of his pajama top and flopping onto the bed. Rafael finishes with his own buttons and sits beside him, still smiling.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “You’re strange. Your whole family. Not – not bad strange. I like it here.”

Sonny grins and nods.

“Yeah, my family’s alright.”

He leans in, but Rafael tilts his head away.

“Your father,” he continues. “He seems… nice.”

“Dad? Yeah, he’s fine, I guess.”

“It must be nice. Having a father like that.”

“Right – your dad’s not around, huh?”

“My dad,” Rafael says venomously, “is not worth the worms it would take to turn his body back into dirt.”

“Wow,” Sonny breathes, unsure how to respond. “I guess it’s good he’s not here in America, then.”

“I hope he’s killed. It makes me a bad person to say so, but so be it. I’m damned anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

Rafael gives Sonny a perplexed look.

“I didn’t plan on kissing you,” he admits, “Before. And I shouldn’t have. But I did and I… I wanted to.”

Sonny’s cheeks reddened.

“I’m glad you did. I would’ve – I didn’t have the nerve. I know it should feel wrong but it doesn’t.”

Sonny runs a hand over his face, pulling away. He gets up from the bed and paces the floor.

“I… I never thought it’d feel like this,” he admits. “I don’t know what to do with myself. Ever since you… you kissed me… it’s all I can think about. I nearly burnt a batch of submarine buns at the bakery yesterday because of it. Not to mention school – gosh, school’s a nightmare. I can feel your eyes on the back of my head!”

Rafael blushes and stares down at the bedspread.

“What are we gonna do?” Sonny asks, and there’s a note of frantic worry in his voice now. Rafael feels bad for putting it there. “I know we shouldn’t but all I wanna do is kiss you again.”

“Then do it,” Rafael hears himself say. He’s not sure why he says it when he knows already it will end with heartbreak. “Just… just ask your heart.”

Sonny chokes on a surprised laugh.

“Frankie Avalon? Really, Barba?”

“Shut it, Carisi,” Rafael shoots back, but he feels better – happier. Let him look the fool if he must, then. At least Sonny's smiling again, and some of the sadness in the air has faded.

“Maybe we can… worry about that later and do more kissin' now?” Sonny offers in a quiet, eager tone. Rafael nods, placated. He knows the worry will come, the loss and the crying will come, but decides he’d sooner have something to look back on when it does.

Sonny’s mouth is gentle, if clumsy, against his own. Rafael’s sure he kisses no better, but there’s no room to be self-conscious here. In a dim, fading way, the romantic tenderness frightens him more than pure passion would. It’s far more dangerous, but Sonny strikes him as the romantic type, and he’s proven right when the younger boy laces their fingers together, content to hold hands and go no further.

Up close, Sonny’s face is flushed pink, his eyes half-closed. When they pull apart for air, his lips are red and wet and there’s spit shining on his chin and all around his mouth. He goes a little cross-eyed when their noses touch. Rafael’s never seen anything like it, and he finds it spectacular. Sonny, who smells like pomade and tastes like marinara, is looking at him with something like love in his eyes and Rafael’s devastated and ecstatic all at once.

Sonny leans in again and kisses along his jaw and it’s all he can do to roll away, smoothing down the ill-fitting pajama shirt he borrowed with trembling hands.

“Stop,” he breathes. “Or I will need to take that shower.”

Sonny shakes his head at that, laughing.

“You’re the crazy one,” he grins. “You’re… you say the kind of things I’d never have the courage to – you’re so… darin’, I guess you could say.”

“Like… Bobby Darin?”

“Ugh… don’t joke about it… Theresa’s been in love with him since last year, it’s all I hear about,” Sonny complains. “You’re way handsomer than any of the boys my sisters like.”

Rafael snorts at that and rolls his eyes. They lie, shoulder to shoulder, staring up at the model planes that hang, suspended, from the ceiling, gathering dust.

Time stretches on. Rafael's heart thuds in his chest.

“I… we should say our prayers now, right?” Sonny whispers. “I mean… I always do, so –”

“Turn out the light first,” Rafael whispers back.

Sonny reaches for the bedside lamp and turns it off. In the dark, Rafael listens to the measured pace of Sonny’s breathing.

“In nomine Patris…” Rafael begins, nudging Sonny in the arm with his elbow as he raises his hand to cross himself.

“et Filii et Spiritus Sancti,” he continues, with Sonny’s voice joining his own. They pray, speaking words in a shared tongue, and a sense of peace descends over them. _Please, let us make good choices,_ Rafael adds, mentally, pleading in a way he has not done in years. He has not felt so close to God since before they had to flee his homeland – since some nebulous time in his early boyhood when the Church told him to honor his mother and his father, a father who turned his fists upon his wife and son without mercy. He is confused, unsure of why he feels not only no sense of impending doom, but also such a comfort, praying with the boy he has just kissed.

When they are finished, he makes a move to slide onto the floor.

“What are you doin’?”

“I thought – wouldn’t your parents suspect if they find us sleeping _together_ in the bed?”

“Why would they? I have to sleep four to a bed with my cousins at Christmas. Get over here.”

Rafael scoots back over, and Sonny wraps an arm around him, holding him tight.

“Sleep on the floor,” he mutters. “I’d never make you sleep on the floor. What kind of person d’you think I am?”

It’s meant to be a joke, but the answer that comes to Rafael’s lips is far from humorous. He feigns sleep, and Sonny gives up, rolling away and, soon, beginning to snore.

 _You’re the best person I’ve ever met,_ Rafael thinks. _When I lose you, I will lose the best parts of my heart._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgot to add the Frankie Avalon song, Just Ask Your Heart circa 1959:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7pdHn5Ldro


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couldn't resist pumping out an angst chapter. I've decided on how this bad boy is gonna end, and it's not happy. That said, I have also decided on a sequel, and it'll wind up with them getting together sometime in the mid 1970s when Carisi's a cop and Barba's a lawyer. So yeah. Tags have been updated.
> 
> Warning for a time jump of months. Also I can't for the life of me remember if Sonny has a canon birthdate so I'm arbitrarily saying he's a July or an August baby, so he hasn't had his birthday before prom comes. 
> 
> Also, no underaged sex, still, but a warning for a pretty shitty first time for Barba on prom night with a date we will never mention again.

* * *

Rafael is right, of course. He takes no pleasure in it.

Things are good – too good – throughout the months leading up to graduation. Sonny is buoyant with optimism, wearing his 'Kennedy for President' button and a perpetual smile. He chatters on incessantly about politics to anyone who’ll listen, and changes his aspiration almost daily. Rafael studies harder than his peers, and smiles less. He’s got ambition – even the teachers who hate him see that. He’s insolent, smug, mouthy, but most irritating of all, he’s smarter than half of them, and a better debater than the other half, and they all know it.

In private, the boys kiss - at the Carisi family home, under the bleachers, and once, on Lovebird's Hill, in the station wagon. They don’t go further, though it’s clear Sonny wants to. Rafael wants to just as much but won’t, which Sonny respects. In the end, it’s this bit of restraint that makes the whole catastrophe survivable for him at all.

They’re playing catch in a lot near the high school when Sonny brings up the prom, and brings about the beginning of the end.

“It just seems kinda... I dunno. I don’t wanna go to be honest,” he admits.

“You have to go,” Rafael counters. “We both do. I’ve already got a date.”

Sonny misses the baseball and it hits him in the shoulder. He staggers back, eyes wide, wounded.

“You – you were gonna tell me about this when, exactly?”

Rafael shrugs. In all honesty, he's surprised Sonny hadn't lined up a date of his own already.

“I’m telling you now.”

Sonny throws the ball back with enough force that Rafael’s hand stings, even in his glove.

“Right. Who is she, then?”

“Edie Novak.”

Sonny’s jaw clenches. Everyone at school knows Edie Novak’s reputation. This is more than just a date – it’s an overt display of sexual rebellion that he doesn’t expect from someone like Rafael, and not just on account of all the times they’ve kissed.

“How’d you get a girl like Edie Novak to even notice you exist?” he sneers. Rafael, predictably, bristles at the challenge. For all his protestation, he likes a fight as much as anyone. More, maybe.

“I do her homework for her. She likes my accent. Says it’s sexy.”

Sonny sputters at that, red-faced at the thought. He’s never heard a girl talk like that and normally, he’d chalk it up to bragging, but Edie Novak’s no more an ordinary schoolgirl than Brigitte Bardot is. She’s in a league of her own.

“Why… why’d you pick her anyway?” he mutters, throwing down his glove and turning away. His eyes are wet. He doesn’t want Rafael to see.

“It’s time we start behaving like everyone else,” Rafael says, throat tight. The words taste horrible. He spits them out in haste. “We’re not going to be in high school forever.”

“So what? What are you gonna do, anyway? ‘Not gonna be in high school forever’ – God, you sound like my father!”

Rafael startles a bit – it’s not like Sonny to blaspheme.

“We’re going to have jobs and lives and – and families. Surely you expect that... want it.”

“Maybe,” Sonny snaps. “Maybe I don’t. Hell, I don’t know what I’m gonna do after school – you think I don’t get nagged enough at home for it? I’m gonna join the army and pray the Red’s push their luck, and I’m gonna go and get shot someplace and die – how’d you like that?”

He sounds like a child, Rafael thinks. Looks like one, too. Face all red and wet. How in Heaven did he get to be seventeen and so damn _soft?_

“It’s your life,” he says flatly. “You can live it how you want to.”

“Oh, well, fine. That’s swell – gee, you’re a real nice guy, you know that?”

Rafael’s heart clenches painfully. He reacts in spite of himself.

“What you want – Sonny, you’re talking about a – a fantasy. A dream. We had a good time together but it’ll only ever be that. People like,” _us,_ “that don’t get fairytale endings.”

“So, lemme get this all straightened out in my head – me not wanting you to get VD from Edie Novak is somehow a dream, but you wanting to go off and be a fancy Harvard-educated lawyer – that’s realistic? You’re just as deluded as I am, you hypocrite – you’ll never make it.”

It hurts. It hurts more than Rafael thought words could.

“You believed it when you thought I’d pity you enough to take you to bed,” he hisses. Sonny pales, casts a glance around, and, upon ensuring privacy, crowds up close. Rafael shrinks back – Sonny can’t mean to hurt him _physically –_ not knowing what he does, surely –

“I never believed it. I said it to make you smile. That’s all.”

His voice is flat. Dead. He doesn’t sound anything like Sonny Carisi should sound. Then he turns on his heel, and walks away. He leaves his glove in the field.

Rafael isn’t sure why he takes it with him, but he does. 

* * *

 

Rafael feels… not better, afterwards, (a large part of him feels like he might be dying, actually,) but certainly less unsure. He spares a thought for the fact that Sonny might one day come back to blackmail him, but he has enough on Sonny that such an act would tear down both their reputations. Everything else, he buries. He's had plenty of practice, and it's surprisingly easy to package all the thoughts up in his brain and push them away.

He and Sonny don't meet up for catch anymore, or at the diner for shakes. They nod to each other when they have to, and avoid each other when they don’t. Rafael sits alone to eat lunch, or, frequently, with Edie and her friends, who’ve taken to him on account of him being exotic enough to enrage their fathers when he stops by for double dates, or to drive them around in his landlord’s car. On some level, it disgusts him, but it is easier to live with disgust than to live with shame.

Sonny brings Susie Ricci to prom. He spills punch on her dress and has all the charm and charisma of a dead fish. They make eye-contact once across the room, and there’s hurt there, and rage, but enough heat that Rafael feels sick with it.

Someone – probably Petey Fitzgerald – gets alcohol into the punch. By the time Rafael staggers back to his car, he’s seeing double. Edie has to coach him through driving home, and he’s so drunk it takes him a good ten minutes to realize they’ve driven to Lovebird’s Hill, and not either of their houses. Edie tastes like nothing when she kisses him – clean and plain. She coaches him through unhooking her brassiere, coaches him into the backseat of the car. She takes him out of his pants and coaches him through that, too.

It’s exactly the way he expects it to be. She’s soft and warm, and she looks magazine-perfect, even when their noses touch. He feels a dull sense of accomplishment when she scoots back on the seat and bends her head down, lets him come off in her mouth. Then she’s outside with the car door open, her breasts swinging bare, dress pooled around her waist as the punch catches up to her and she vomits into the grass.

He gets her home late, assures her he’s sobered up enough to make it home, and kisses her goodnight. Already, he knows he won’t go out with her again.

When he gets home, his mother’s waiting. He doesn’t bother hiding the lipstick on his collar, the bruise on his neck. Hell, the smell probably gives it away, sweat and sex mingling with his aftershave. She takes one look at him, eyes hard and sharp, and slaps him, just once, across the face.

Rafael can count the number of physical blows he’s ever _deserved_ on one hand, but he supposes this one may have been warranted.

He lies awake in bed until morning. Edie calls, once. He tells his grandmother to say that he’s not in.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where one story ends, another is just beginning. Join me in the sequel which will feature a 70s-era Sonny (with a mustache) working as a disco crashing, drug-busting vice cop on the mean streets New York...

* * *

Drifting apart should get easier with time, but it never does. Sonny’s a sap, his sisters tell him so, and ask him why he’s moping around so much. He tells them about Susie Ricci, and ruining her dress, and they take his lovelorn sighs for regretful ones and leave him alone.

It’s weird. He doesn’t feel like a grown-up man. He still feels like a kid, even when he starts working full time at the bakery, and nights at Louie Bianchini’s dad’s garage. He has no goals, no plans, can’t stick to nothing.

“When are you gonna make up your mind? The world’s gonna pass you by if you don’t do somethin’!” his father complains. Sonny sulks and smokes and rolls his eyes.

Months pass by. Word on the street is Rafael and Edie went all the way up on Lovebird’s Hill. Word on the street is she left him for Denny Russo, and that’s confirmed when she and Denny get married in July. Everyone says Denny’s a fool to take up with a girl like Edie Novak, say she's a tramp and a shame on both their families, but Sonny goes to the reception and they seem happy enough.

Lisa Bianchini – Louie’s older sister – is his date for the wedding, and then for Petey Fitzgerald’s when he marries his long-time girlfriend. She’s nice enough, a little short, a little rotund, but not in a bad way. She’s cheerful, and she laughs at all Sonny’s jokes, and he thinks maybe that’ll be enough to make it work.

Kennedy gets elected, which is swell. His dad spends the days that follow calling everyone he can think of to talk about it. Lisa comes over and puts her head on Sonny’s shoulder while they sit on the loveseat downstairs. When Perry Mason comes on, Lisa looks at him, brow furrowed.

“Turn it off, will ya?” she pleads, smacking her gum. “Stuff like this always gives me a headache.”

Months turn into years. In 1962, Sonny quits the bakery job to focus more on mechanics. Working with Frankie and his dad is fine and all, but boring. He hears it from his mother, when Rafael’s grandmother gets sick. Then sicker.

He’s ashamed of himself, but he fakes having a cold the day of the funeral. Lisa brings him soup and presses a wet cloth to his forehead. She smells like his mother – they wear the same scent – and she fusses over him like he’s a baby. When she gets up from her perch on the edge of the bed, meaning to get him a glass of water, he grabs her wrist and pulls her back.

“D’you…” he ventures, “maybe… wanna get married?”

It’s no secret that Lisa’s had a crush on him for years. He’s not surprised when she smiles in delight and smothers him with kisses. They’re not bad kisses. Can’t complain really.

“What made you pick me?” she asks, hungry for praise. She’s never been conventionally beautiful – more… cute in a plump, rosy way – and she loves when he tells her things he likes about her.

“Seems like everyone’s getting hitched,” he shrugs. “You’re here. I’m here. A boy and a girl… why not?”

She clicks her tongue at him, teasing.

“You’re _such_ a romantic.”

“You’re sweet. You’re funny. You like kids and dogs and cannoli, and you think the world of me. Where could I go wrong with that?”

He means it too, every word. She feels good in his arms, like she’s supposed to be there, but she doesn’t get his blood racing. He tries, really tries, not to think about why.

Things change in 1963. For him. For everybody.

“Hey, did you hear this?” Theresa says one morning over breakfast as she’s sorting through the mail. “Look, in _The Daily Now_.”

“Are we still getting that useless thing?” Mr. Carisi interjects, “Gina – I know your friend thinks her column is worth a million dollars, but I’m not convinced it’s worth the thirty-five cents a week to –”

“Is it Cuba again?” Bella pipes up. She has no interest in politics, and, in Sonny’s private opinion, is turning into a bit of a bimbo, (though he’d never say so out loud,) but even she was caught up in the tension of last October.

“Not Cuba, but it’s a Cuban. Look, Sonny, your old friend Rafael’s in here.”

She passes Sonny the paper, and he takes it because everyone expects him to. The family knows they aren’t as close as they once were, but they don’t know the friendship has ceased to exist. The families see each other at Mass every week, after all, for Sonny and Rafael to exchange tight smiles and stilted nods. Barba, in a pew alone, or with his mother when she isn’t busy, always leaving a space on his left, where his grandmother used to stand. Sonny, crammed in next to his sisters with Lisa at his side. Rafael hadn’t been there in the last few weeks, but Sonny hadn’t known he’d moved – and onto such fine prospects – until he sees the paper.

“What’s it say, son?” his father asks, so he reads the little box of text aloud.

“Well, I’ll be damned. The kid got into Harvard after all. That’s worth of the front page of this sorry local rag, damn it. Why we need another article on Whats-her-face Mc-whoosit and her job at that modelling agency is beyond me –”

“You should send him a card, Sonny – a card and a bottle of wine!” his mother enthuses.

“I told you that boy was going places, didn’t I, Donna? Maybe he’ll work for Kennedy one day. Are you any closer to goin' to college, Sonny?”

“I don’t wanna go to college!” he spits, slamming his hand on the table louder than he means to. His family stares at him in shock as he struggles to collect himself.

“I wanna join the Marines,” he blurts out. His father’s eyebrows rise about an inch.

“The Marines?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m gonna. I’ll go to the recruitin’ office today if you don’t believe me.”

“Sonny, don’t you think maybe you should –”

“Should _what,_ Ma? I’m not gettin’ any younger. Dad’s right. I’ll go tell Lisa, talk it over with her, and then I’ll join up. I’m not changin’ my mind, so you’d best all start prayin’ for it to go well for me.”

He lifts his chin and says it with confidence, and leaves without finishing breakfast.

Lisa cries a bit, when he tells her. She holds his big hands in her small ones and huddles close to him, sobbing into his shirt.

“Hey, hey, don’t do that – I picked you ‘cause you’re strong! You’re my tough girl, ain’t that right?”

Lisa nods and sniffs, and he kisses her until she smiles through her tears.

“I’m gonna go and when I come back, I’ll be the kind of boy your friend’s will go crazy for. And I’m all yours, okay?”

“You don’t mind me showin’ you off?” she blinks, wiping tears away on her wrist.

“Nah, I’m a good sport.”

“You’ll look handsome in a uniform, I bet,” she ventures, and he grins wide enough his jaw aches.

He follows through on his word, and if his father disapproves, he never says it to his face.

Lisa’s a good girl to have waiting at home. She writes once a week, pages and pages, all about his family, and hers. He misses them keenly, misses his sisters and his mom and dad, but he’s always been able to fit into a group of guys well enough, and he’s far from the loneliest guy in boot camp. It’s hard – it’s the hardest thing he’s ever done – but his body is up to the challenge. He’s not the best marine that ever lived, but he’s proving he won’t be the worst, either. South Carolina is nothing like home, but it’s true what they say – that the military becomes a sort of second family. Best part of it all is he can put his energy towards tasks and see results, in his fitness, in his training, and any thoughts that clutter up his brain he can just toss aside.

He’s at MCRD PI when Kennedy gets assassinated. It feels like he’s a balloon someone’s pricked to let all the air out of. He’s not the only one who feels adrift. He’s talking it over with Jones and Sawyer, two jarheads he’s become fast friends with, when it all clicks, lines up in his head. Everything. His life. His purpose. He’d never expected such an epiphany to come to him in the Mess over lukewarm grits and tepid coffee, but when it does, it knocks him for six.

“I think I’m supposed to help people,” he says earnestly. “I mean, that’s what we’re doin’ all this for, right? We, as Marines. As Americans.”

“Right,” Jones says, taking a bite of his grits without enthusiasm. “And?”

“And what about after – what about when we win and – and come home?”

Sawyer snorts.

“You sure you want to think that far ahead, Carisi?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Look, we’re gonna get back and then what?”

“I’m career military, through and through, same as my pappy,” he shrugs. “Jonesy?”

“I dunno. Maybe get married, I guess.”

“Yeah, yeah, but listen – why do you think Kennedy got shot?”

“Oh, here we go.”

“Kennedy got shot,” Sonny insists, “because we live in a country where the bad guys outnumber the good guys. Heck, the world’s like that all over!”

“So the world is shit? That’s your point?”

“No – we get a choice. I get one, you get one.”

“Okay,” Sawyer sighs, steepling his fingers. “I’ll bite. What’re you choosing?”

Sonny looks him straight in the eye, as serious as either of his pals have ever seen him.

“I’m gonna go stick it to the Commies. Then I’m gonna come back here, and once I'm on American soil, I’m gonna become a cop.”

Jonesy snorts and stuffs another spoonful of grits in his mouth.

“You’re such a fuckin’ idealist,” he laughs. Sawyer just claps him on the shoulder.

“Ha ha… alright, Sonny. I bet you’ll win this thing all on your own, huh? Vietnam will never know what hit it.”

Sonny laughs along, but doesn’t doubt for a minute that he’s right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, things - first, I'm getting out of the time period I know the most about, so hopefully History Lite is still fairly History Accurate:
> 
> 1\. The Daily Now is not a real local newspaper. A google search confirmed it's some kind of comic book blog thing last active in 2010? But it was not a newspaper in Staten Island's Catholic community, so there you go. It's made up. The pricing, however, is not made up. It's based on the recorded price for Morristown, New Jersey's Daily Record, circa 1962, which was .07 cents per weekday. I figured it'd be close to that, so I ran with it. Look up more historic prices in New Jersey here for kicks: https://mclib.info/reference/local-history-genealogy/historic-prices/
> 
> 2\. re: last October - i.e. October 1962, i.e the Cuban Missile Crisis
> 
> 3\. MCRD-PI is short for Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, in South Carolina, where marines east of the Mississippi get trained.
> 
> 4\. It's canon that Sonny was a marine, so I had to run with it. My dad joined the army at nearly the same time ('round about 63-64, back when Vietnam was a thing but it was before the draft so people like to forget about all the many guys who went over there. He personally knew some guys who'd been there since the beginning in '55, some of whom were really hardcore (marines as far as I recall,) who had been in the jungle a looooong time, so to speak. Maybe I'll double check with him and confirm that story 100% in the sequel to this fic... I'm curious now.) So I talked to him a bit to get some of the thinking right, make sure things were feeling semi-realistic.
> 
> Special thanks to Dad, and to Mom for suggesting that 70s Sonny will own a wash-and-wear leisure suit, because of course he will. Also, you'll get to see Benson in the sequel, as a cop making her way in the man's world of the 1970s NYPD. And to all the lovely folks who left kudos, comments, and bookmarks. See you in the sequel, where we'll contend with Barba actually becoming the ADA, Sonny actually being a cop, and Vietnam flashbacks, all with a groovy soundtrack to go with the chapters (probably.)


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